This blog follows my exploits in Hood River, Oregon through late October until Thanksgiving. For the next month my energies will be largely consumed by one thing: building a hand made canoe to give to Mr. John Childs so that I might ask for the hand of his lovely daughter Kristen N Childs in marriage.

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Canoe-shop 101: Principles of Canoe Building

Principle #1- Make sure you know what you are getting yourself into. Costs and time involved are significant, to say the least. Count on a few 14 hour days, about ¼ lb of sawdust in your lungs, countless splinters and one gashed index finger. If you are building the canoe in a secret location on the other side of the country prepare for the locals in your temporary villa to say, “You’re the guy!” and frequently refer to you as “the canoe guy.” They will make jokes about how crazy you are and wonder why you didn’t just take her out for a fancy dinner and a play.

Don’t worry. If you are crazy enough to build a canoe in exchange for the hand of a charming woman, chances are you are learning something about love. The costs and time involved, though great, will almost seem inconsequential when you hear her voice at night. In the end, if you show her even the tiniest picture of how precious she is and how thankful you are for her, any and all costs incurred will be instantly reimbursed. When you finish, you will wonder how you ever ended up with someone like her for only the cost of a handmade canoe.




The Canoe
Week one in Hood River has come to an end. The canoe is right on schedule. Last night the canoe finally began to take shape as I finished aligning the moldings onto the strongback. This essentially is the skeleton of the canoe. The strongback is a long, thin table that runs the length of the canoe (in this case, 16 ft.) which the moldings are then aligned off of every 13 inches.

The wooded strips are then run along the outside of the moldings for the entire horizontal length of the canoe. Yesterday I spent most of the day making these wood strips, which will be the canoe itself. For the wood, I’ve chosen Sitka Spruce. I have chosen it for its light weight, it’s light color, and strength. It is a tiny bit heavier than red cedar, which is often used, but I have chosen the spruce for its strength just in case Mr. Childs wants to take the canoe on some rougher waters.

The Sitka Spruce comes in 1X6 planks, which are then cut down to create many ¼ inch strips. Now that the strips are so thin, they can easily be bent to conform to the curves of the canoe’s geometry. By the end of the week, you should be able to see the actual canoe put together in its rough form.



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